Ridgefielders help Sandy victims

Ridgefield Responds and Share Joy are both collecting supplies.

Collette Zahra has been making car trips to New Hope Baptist Church in Newark, N.J., bringing a wide range of goods she has collected to help Sandy victims.

With victims of Hurricane Sandy still recovering in areas harder hit than Ridgefield, where entire neighborhoods were destroyed and people were killed, some local folks are helping people in Newark, the Rockaways, and Staten Island.

The efforts include individuals as well as groups, such as the organization that was formed to help victims of Katrina seven years ago.

“I, honestly, when I kept watching the news, it was like my heart started melting,” said Collette Zahra, who has been driving carloads of goods directly to the New Hope Baptist Church in Newark, N.J.

She chose to collect, raise, and distribute the goods directly, in part because of a skepticism about whether large nonprofit agencies get enough bang for the buck.

“Everybody was saying donate to the American Red Cross,” she said. “I think a bigger action needs to happen where I could just physically drive these things down there and it will get to these people quicker.

She points to a recent report that the Red Cross spent $181,000 to put volunteers in a posh Manhattan Hotel for $310 a night as evidence that there is too much overhead for her to be satisfied making a donation.

Instead of writing a check, she drove a packed car full of diapers, coats, clothes, cleaning supplies down to a church in Newark and helped deliver them.

“I was supposed to call them 10, 15 minutes before I arrived just because of security,” Ms. Zahra said. “There were already people coming off the streets, they saw my car… At 8:30 in the morning these people were already lining up to get stuff.”

“We volunteered so we had to wait for two big 18 wheelers… delivering the apple sauce that Amazon donated. We helped take that off.”

Inside the church, Ms. Zahra worked in the back room, organizing and sending out items when people in the front told her what was needed.

At the same time, they planned to collect cleaning supplies and food items outside Stop & Shop.

A drop-off day today Saturday, Nov. 24, will be from 10 to 4, at one of the Schlumberger garages off Old Quarry Road. Visit facebook.com/pages/Share-Joy-International/ for updates.

Volunteers from town will bring the collected items to Tunnel of Towers and Staten Island University Hospital and helping with distribution Saturday, Dec. 1.

“We welcome all tax-deductible donations that can be made on line at www.sharejoyinternational.org via PayPal, or gift cards to stores such as Lowe’s, Home Depot, Wal-Mart, Target, etc.,” said Jonathan Chase of Share Joy International. “These donations will go directly to those most affected by the storm, via the organizations we have vetted and are working with.”